"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always." Mohandas Gandhi

In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell

Billions of years ago, the technologically-advanced extraterrestrial race known as the Watchers decided it was their duty to help the universe's less advanced races. In their first such experiment, proposed by Ikor, a delegation of four brought atomic energy knowledge to the planet Prosilicus. The Prosilicans accepted the gift, but used it to develop nuclear weapons and engaged in an auto-genocidal war. Ashamed, the Watchers vowed never again to interfere in the affairs of other races. Ikor drafted a code of ethics based upon strict noninterference and passive observation that was so strict that if another being were dying at a Watcher's feet, the Watcher would offer no aid. With their new code established, the Watchers evacuated their homeworld and relocated throughout the galaxies, each Watcher choosing a solar system where they could observe and mentally record the lives of other races for the sake of eventually sharing it with their fellow Watchers. The Watchers would then sporadically reassemble to pool their knowledge and share what they had witnessed.

Ben Bernanke, Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton amongst a host of other global power brokers have all convened in Chantilly Virginia to secretly discuss the future of the world - yet not one mainstream U.S. corporate media outlet has uttered a single word about the 2008 Bilderberg conference.

The Bilderberg group, an elite coterie of Western thinkers and power-brokers, has been accused of fixing the fate of the world behind closed doors. As the organisation marks its 50th anniversary, rumours are more rife than ever.

Given its reputation as perhaps the most powerful organisation in the world, the Bilderberg group doesn't go a bundle on its switchboard operations.

“This powerful National Geographic video documents how for decades, top secret government projects worked virtually non-stop to perfect means of controlling the human mind. Though for many years the government denied that these projects even existed, the details have long been preserved in thousands of pages of now declassified government documents reluctantly released through the Freedom of Information Act. LSD and electroshock therapy in huge doses given to unsuspecting citizens are only a part of this unbelievable program.

CIA Secret Experiments blows the lid off years of chilling experiments, drawing on the above-mentioned declassified documents and interviews with some of the victims. Hear from John Marks, the author of In Search of the Manchurian Candidate, who originally broke the story of the CIA’s abuses by unraveling the mysteries contained in the declassified documents. Learn how many of the most important records pertaining to the mind control experiments were destroyed by the director of the CIA in an attempt to prevent the details from ever being known.” http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20080606125526721

CIA Secret Experiments

It’s the height of the Cold War and the United States government is desperate to combat the spread of Communism. The CIA launches a highly c…all »“It’s the height of the Cold War and the United States government is desperate to combat the spread of Communism. The CIA launches a highly classified, top secret research program into the covert use of biological and chemical agents. In simulated attacks on enemy populations, entire cities in America are contaminated with bacteria, exposing millions of Americans to germ warfare. But the real focus of the research is on mastering the art of mind control. Psychiatrists at top academic institutions work under secret contract with the agency. Psychiatric patients, prisoners, even unwitting members of the public are exposed to a startling array of experiments designed to facilitate interrogations, induce amnesia and program in new behavior. Every psychological technique is explored, including hypnosis, electroshock therapy and lethal cocktails of drugs. What was the extent of these brainwashing experiments? How did the CIA become involved in such far-reaching and disturbing research? Join us as National Geographic presents: CIA Secret Experiments.” http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7593041103799709699

6. “Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph.”

7. “Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.”

8. “When you say, ‘I wrote a program that crashed Windows,’ people just stare at you blankly and say, ‘Hey, I got those with the system, for free.’”

9. “I don't doubt at all that virtualization is useful in some areas. What I doubt rather strongly is that it will ever have the kind of impact that the people involved in virtualization want it to have.”

10. “Now, most of you are probably going to be totally bored out of your minds on Christmas day, and here's the perfect distraction. Test 2.6.15-rc7. All the stores will be closed, and there's really nothing better to do in between meals.”

Friday, June 06, 2008

"Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer andjails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killingthousands and pillaging the very hills?": Kahlil Gibran

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"Conquered states that have been accustomed to liberty and thegovernment of their own laws can be held by the conqueror in three differentways. The first is to ruin them; the second, for the conqueror to go and residethere in person; and the third is to allow them to continue to live under theirown laws, subject to a regular tribute, and to create in them a government of afew, who will keep the country friendly to the conqueror": NiccoloMachiavelli, The Prince

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"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation,nor does truth become error because nobody sees it": MohandasGandhi

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"In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. There isneither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave":John James Ingalls

The German government yesterday passed a controversial anti-terror law that would grant police the power to monitor private residences, telephones and computers.

Instead of tapping phones, they would be able to use video surveillance and even spy software to collect evidence. Physically tampering with suspects' computers would still not be allowed, but police could send anonymous e-mails containing trojans and hope the suspects infect their own computers.

Privacy and civil liberties groups are strongly opposed. They point at a recent scandal at Deutsche Telecom, which illegally monitored phone call records to see if it could stop leaking information to journalists. Sebastian Edathy, chairman of the Bundestag's domestic affairs committee, yesterday told Deutsche Welle that "we don't want a spy state." He believes the proposed measures are "uncharted territory in the law".

"A broad array of organizations will have use of the system, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Agriculture, the police, secret service and customs, and in some cases major businesses."

ECHELON is a name used in global media and in popular culture to describe a signals intelligence collection and analysis network operated on behalf of the five signatory states to the UKUSA agreement; Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, known as AUSCANZUKUS.[1]

The system has been reported in a number of public sources.[2] Its capabilities and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001.[3]

In its report, the European Parliament states that the term ECHELON is used in a number of contexts, but that the evidence presented indicates that it was the name for a signals intelligence collection system. The report concludes that, on the basis of evidence presented, ECHELON was capable of interception and content inspection of telephone calls, fax, e-mail and other data traffic globally through the interception of communication bearers including satellite transmission, public switched telephone networks and microwave links. The committee further concluded that "the technical capabilities of the system are probably not nearly as extensive as some sections of the media had assumed".[3]

Sweden is on the verge of passing a far-reaching wiretapping program that would greatly expand the government's spying capabilities by permitting it to monitor all email and telephone traffic coming in and out of the country.

So far, hacks from the mainstream Swedish press seem to be on holiday, so news about the proposed law is woefully hard to come by. That leaves us turning to this summary from the decidedly left-leaning Swedish Pirate Party for details. We'd prefer to rely on a more neutral group, but that wasn't possible this time. According to them, here's a broad outline:

The En anpassad försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet bill (which loosely translates to "a better adapted military intelligence gathering") gives Sweden's National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) direct access to the traffic passing through its borders. Now remember, we're talking about the internet, which frequently routes packets though multiple geographically dispersed hops before they reach their final destination.

This all but guarantees that emails and voice over IP (VoIP) calls between Swedes will routinely be siphoned into a massive monitoring machine. And we wouldn't be surprised if traffic between parties with no tie to the country regularly passes through Sweden's border as well, and that too would be fair game. (For example, email sent from a BT address in London to Finland is likely to pass through Sweden first.)

Once intercepted, the data will be searched for certain keywords, and those that contain the words will be pulled aside for additional scrutiny. A broad array of organizations will have use of the system, including the Department of Transportation, the Department of Agriculture, the police, secret service and customs, and in some cases major businesses. The bill allows Swedes to be singled out, as well.

"Surprisingly enough, there hasn't been that much written about it, even in the Swedish media," said Patrik Runald, a Swedish national and a security response manager for F-Secure who works in San Jose, California.

"The funny thing is when asked what do you want to look for, [backers of the bill] don't really specify what they're interested in," he continued. "It's a very broad bill. They basically can interpret whatever they like."

MOSCOW — On a talk show last fall, a prominent political analyst named Mikhail G. Delyagin had some tart words about Vladimir V. Putin. When the program was later televised, Mr. Delyagin was not.Skip to next paragraphKremlin Rules

In a still frame from video, the incomplete digital erasure of a Putin critic named Mikhail G. Delyagin from an episode of the program "The People Want to Know" can be seen. Mr. Delyagin's leg and hand remain visible, to the right of the man holding the microphone.

Not only were his remarks cut — he was also digitally erased from the show, like a disgraced comrade airbrushed from an old Soviet photo. (The technicians may have worked a bit hastily, leaving his disembodied legs in one shot.)

Mr. Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list, a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from TV news and political talk shows by the Kremlin.

“The death of informality”. That was how Josie Appleton, convenor of the Manifesto Club, described the results of the second government consultation on the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA).

The ISA is the child of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.

From next year, all those who wish to work, either paid or unpaid, with children or vulnerable adults will need to be vetted. Those who fail the vetting will be barred from obtaining such work. Individuals who seek to work in these areas, knowing that they have been barred, will be committing a criminal offence. Registration will cost £64 per person, although this will be waived for those only wishing to work in an unpaid voluntary capacity. This initiative will be supported by a central database, holding the details of 11.3 million people, or slightly more than a quarter of the adult population. This is an increase of nearly 3 million over initial Home Office estimates, making it the most extensive database of its kind in the world. The scheme launch has been put back to next year as a result of ‘concerns about data security’ and extra work needed to ensure its database was ‘robust’.

The ISA is due to take up its full responsibilities in October 2009. It recently announced its appointment of a board to supervise future work, under the chairmanship of Roger Singleton, former chief executive at Barnardo’s. Concern focuses on two areas.

According to Appleton, who is co-ordinating a national campaign against this new legislation, 'The vetting database is based on the misconception that it is possible for the state to regulate every interaction between adults and children. If only 'state-approved' adults can relate to children, we'll see the death of the many informal clubs, societies and nurseries that are so important for children's development.'

ipcalc takes an IP address and netmask and calculates the resulting broadcast,network, Cisco wildcard mask, and host range. By giving a second netmask, youcan design subnets and supernets. It is also intended to be a teaching tooland presents the subnetting results as easy-to-understand binary values.

Enter your netmask(s) in CIDR notation (/25) or dotted decimals (255.255.255.0).Inverse netmasks are recognized.If you omit the netmask ipcalc uses the default netmask for the class of your network.

The intersection of ethics, law, business and computer software is the subject of these essays and speeches by MacArthur Foundation Grant winner, Richard M. Stallman. This collection includes historical writings such as The GNU Manifesto, which defined and launched the activist Free Software Movement, along with new writings on hot topics in copyright, patent law, and the controversial issue of “trusted” (more properly called “treacherous”) computing. Stallman takes a critical look at common abuses of copyright law and patents when applied to computer software programs, and how these abuses damage our entire society and remove our existing freedoms. He also discusses the social aspects of software and how free software can create community and social justice.

Given the current turmoil in copyright and patent laws, including the DMCA and proposed CBDTPA, these essays are more relevant than ever. Stallman tackles head-on the essential issues driving the current changes in copyright law. He argues that for creativity to flourish, software must be free of inappropriate and overly-broad legal constraints. Over the past twenty years his arguments and actions have changed the course of software history; this new book is sure to impact the future of software and legal policies in the years to come.

Lawrence Lessig, the author of two well-known books on similar topics, writes the introduction. He is a noted legal expert on copyright law and a Stanford Law School professor.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this book provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement that would impose strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods. The agreement is being secretly negotiated by the governments of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, and Mexico.[1][2] If adopted at the 34th G8 summit in July 2008, the treaty would establish an international coalition against copyright infringement, imposing a strong, top-down enforcement regime of copyright laws in developed nations. The proposed agreement would allow border officials to search laptops, MP3 players, and cellular phones for copyright-infringing content. It would also impose new cooperation requirements upon internet service providers (ISPs), including perfunctory disclosure of customer information, and restrict the use of online privacy tools. The proposal specifies a plan to encourage developing nations to accept the legal regime.

The European Commission, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and other government agencies have acknowledged participating in ACTA negotiations, but they have not released documents relating to the proposed agreement. Public interest advocates in Canada filed an access to information request but received only a document stating the title of the agreement, with everything else blacked out.[2] On May 22, 2008, a discussion paper about the proposed agreement was uploaded to Wikileaks, and newspaper reports about the secret negotiations quickly followed.[3][4][2][5]

Such was the predictable fallout from a leaked document outlining a new Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) being negotiated between the US, Canada, the EU, Japan, and other nations, and it has lead to a spate of lurid online accusations that border agents will soon be searching iPods and laptops for illicit copies of Zoolander. The reality is less thrilling but potentially more serious.

While Industry Minister Jim Prentice and Canadian officials continue to remain mum about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a report out of the U.S. suggests that there is considerable reason for public concern. Congress Daily (sub req) quotes a high-level official from the USTR as indicating that the talks are gaining steam, with a binding international agreement likely by the end of the year. The USTR official continued by noting that the treaty will focus on international cooperation, enforcement practices, and a legal framework. The article confirms that the USTR comments are consistent with the document leaked last week that has led to front page headlines in Canada.

What is interesting about ACTA is a different set of provisions. The first is one that would allow countries to bring criminal penalties against those who commit "willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright owner (e.g., Internet piracy)."

The document has lead Canadian legal scholar Michael Geist to write this week, "The effect of these reforms will dramatically reshape Canadian law with Prentice and Prime Minister Stephen Harper rolling out the red carpet for President George Bush's demands and leaving Canadians wondering how their consumer, property, and privacy rights suddenly disappeared."

The work's thesis is that "the United States has been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state [Israel]", and that U.S.Middle East policy has driven primarily by domestic politics, especially the "Israel Lobby," defined as a "loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel[2] direction."

The authors state that the "core of the Lobby" is "American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests." They note that "not all Jewish-Americans are part of the Lobby," and that "Jewish-Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies."